


If I Get Home on Christmas Day

by DisneyGeekWriter



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Elvis song, F/M, Reunited and It Feels So Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 04:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisneyGeekWriter/pseuds/DisneyGeekWriter
Summary: In order for Kristoff and Anna to marry he must do a stint in the Royal Navy. They must be seperated for six months. Reunion fic. For tumblr's Kristanna Secret Santa exchange.





	If I Get Home on Christmas Day

_If I Get Home on Christmas Day_

 

 

Anna stood at the top of the watch tower overlooking the harbor, watching the horizons for a ship. Early that Spring, the queen’s privy council convened and decided that if the Crown Princess Anna was going to _carry on_ with the ice man, he needed rank and title suitable enough to wed royalty. Anna had words with them about their disdain for Kristoff’s low birth. Kai and Gerda had to escort her out of the council chambers, one on each arm, while Anna showed them how much of Kristoff’s low-born language had rubbed off on her. They insisted that if the princess was determined to marry the ice man, the Queen must bestow upon him a title and naval commission to go with it.

“But I don’t want a title,” Kristoff groaned. “I don’t need a title.” At first Kristoff wanted nothing to do with the Navy or anything else the queen’s advisors wanted. He wanted Anna and that was it. He was happy being an ice harvester. He was good at it and it had provided for him for most of his life. He didn’t need some fancy title or land, beyond what he already homesteaded on the mountains.

“And I don’t want him to ship out,” Anna pleaded. She couldn’t understand why the privy council didn’t see what she saw. Kristoff had more nobility in his honesty than all of those musty old stuffed-shirts combined.

“If he has a title of his own, the council has no grounds to dismiss him,” Elsa explained, patiently, for the fifth time. “A title and commission will make it easier for you both to wed. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

Kristoff’s eyes softened at that, and Anna squeezed his hands a little tighter in her own.

He was a simple man, but since the feisty redhead came into his life…. all he needed was her. He wanted to make her happy, keep her safe, keep her warm. He didn’t need titles, he needed her. That’s it. But if he had to get a title to make this work, and if he had to learn a new trade and ship out, if he had to prove himself to the Queen and her council, and if it would make Anna happy, he would endure. Anything for Anna. 

 

_If I get home on Christmas day_

_I won't need soft words to say_

_I'll miss you and I can stay a while_

_You'll see it in my eyes and when I smile_

 

“I know it's not what you want. But Elsa says it's for the best. 

“I’d feel better about it if it didn’t feel like they were shipping me out to keep me away from you.”

“They can try to keep us apart, but they won’t win,” Anna declared with a fierce gleam in her eye. Kristoff smiled at his red-headed princess. The council were fools if they thought they could break them. Perhaps if they saw him willingly go to the ends of the earth for her, they’d begin to understand just how much he loved her.

“You do your tour with the Navy and then you can come home to me,” Anna said, holding his hands as they sat in the library after Elsa stepped out to give them time to talk. “I don’t want to lose you, Kristoff.”

“It’ll be months before I can come home,” Kristoff said. “I’ll miss Christmas.”

“I know,” Anna sighed. “But it means we can be married in the spring when you return,” Anna countered. Kristoff looked dubious. Spring was a long way away.

“It’ll be worth it. Just think about it, please.”

He gave it two days. Three days later he knelt as an Ice Harvester of nowhere in particular before the Queen. Two touches of her icy sword on his shoulders, and he stood as His Grace, Kristoff, Duke of Living Rock, Knight of the Golden Crocus, Captain in Her Majesty's Navy, and Chief of the Armory and Cannon. By week’s end he was on the _HMS Frostal_ patrolling the outlying islands of Arendelle.

For the first month he spent most of his time getting used to the sea. If he was honest with himself, being on the ship wasn’t much different from being on the mountain. The work was backbreaking but honest. The roll of the desk wasn’t all that different from stepping carefully on lake ice. The sailors were just as crude and boisterous as the mountain men. The only noticeable difference was the vast emptiness of the open ocean compared to the deep forests and grand vistas that was the mountains. Against all his original misgivings, Kristoff found he enjoyed being on a naval vessel. His crew took a shine to the Officer that treated with them fairly and was really one of their own instead of a puffed-up noble’s son who didn’t know a line from his hind end.  They taught him their craft and their songs, and he learned to love the ocean as they did. But not nearly as much as he loved his princess.

 

_If I get home before midnight_

_While you're still sleeping tight_

_I'll take you in my arms and there you'll stay_

_If I get home on Christmas day_

He wrote to her daily, often before he filled out the ship’s logs. Priorities, but he never shirked his duties. At first, he struggled putting his thoughts to words, but just thinking of his princess brought life to his pen. He would post his letters at every harbor they came to, and purchase more ink and paper. He wrote about where they had traveled, the sights he saw, the people they had helped. Sometimes, in the dark of the dog watch, his resolve would tremble when he took out the miniature of her he carried with him, then strengthen when he remembered her love for him burned just as bright as his for her. He wrote to her of his love, how he longed to see her again, to hold her. Some letters were filled with sweet words of love and devotion. Others were filled edge to edge with longing, and with what he wanted to do to her once he was home again. He needed her. While he hadn’t lain with her, he wanted to. Gods, he wanted to. He wanted to take her to her extremely too large bed, fill her and remove any shred of doubt that she was his and he hers. But Anna, despite her own equally raging desire, knew they had to wait. They were enduring months of separation to win years of wedded togetherness. Though it hurt, they waited.

_  
Writing letters everyday_

_Never really seem to say_

_The way I feel deep in this heart of mine_

_Though I'm half a world away_

_If we're patient and we pray_

_Know I'll get my chance with you this time_

 

Anna longed to write to him in return, but she never knew where his ship would be. So her letters went unsent. Instead they were placed lovingly in a hatbox in the top of her wardrobe, hidden along with his hat, her mittens from their time on the mountain, and a single purple crystal he had brought back from the Valley of the Living Rock, a gift to her from him and his family that she learned was akin to an engagement ring. Her letters were also filled with tales of her exploits, her visits to the town now that the gates were open, and of all the sinful things she would do with him once they were wed and such wants were no longer so sinful.

Her days were long and lonely, not nearly as lonely as they had been in the Before. But Elsa had her queenly duties and Olaf was off in the village exploring with the children. Anna’s royal duties were not onerous, which left her to her own devices. She was no longer a child, so some of her favorite distractions learned when she was younger were not always the best options. She had to discover something new to do with herself. Her new favorite thing to do was go down to the stables and care for Sven.

If Kristoff wasn’t keen on becoming a royal, Sven was all for it. He loved being in the castle stables. He had more hay and carrots than he could dream of, and a warm snug stable to call his own. But he missed Kristoff. For Sven, these last months had been the longest he had ever been apart from Kristoff and at first he was sullen and grumpy. The stable hands didn’t know how to handle him, but Anna did. Anna knew just what to do. She came down with a large bag of carrots and would groom him herself. 

“I miss him too, Sven,” she said in her own voice. She ran the brush over his nose and chin and in her best Kristoff-as-Sven voice she said, “Why did he have to go?” “Because people are strange creatures, not rational and normal like reindeer.” Back and forth, she and Sven “talked” and it seemed to lighten both their spirits. Every day she would take him for a ride through the village. Sometimes they would escape up the mountains and visit the trolls. Talking to Grand Pabbie and the others comforted Anna, knowing that she had these small connections to Kristoff even though he was far away. And every night, she would sit in her window with her purple troll crystal around her neck, and pray for his safe return.

 

_If I get home on Christmas day_

_I won't need soft words to say_

_I'll miss you and I can stay a while_

_You'll see it in my eyes and when I smile_

 

The seasons turned, Autumn grudgingly giving way to Winter. The storms were getting worse, and the _Frostal_ was far from port. The ship and her crew would barely get through one storm before another squall would sneak up. The northern seas grew angrier each day. They were down to their last sail, the last of the rations, and they had made the difficult choice to toss many of their guns and cannon overboard to keep the ship afloat in the barrage of storms. They had to find a port, any port, and soon, or the sea would swallow them whole. 

Anna stood watching the sea from the safety of the castle, watching the harbor, waiting. Reports from other merchant vessels said that the seas were getting worse and that the time to return home to port in Arendelle was slipping away. Soon the ice would lock the harbor until the spring thaw. And the ships that didn’t return to port soon, the sea would rip them apart.

_Frostal_ wasn’t back yet. And no letters had been delivered in over a month.

She lost her parents to those angry waters. She couldn’t lose him too. “Come home to me, Kristoff.” She said prayers to whatever gods were listening. She prayed he could find a port, any port. She prayed to keep him safe. She prayed to bring him home.

 

_If I get home before midnight_

_While you're still sleeping tight_

_I'll take you in my arms and there you'll stay_

_If I get home on Christmas day_

The bedraggled, storm-scarred ship limped into port on the late evening tide. The harbormaster, woken from his hot gløgg-induced slumber, waved them in without ceremony. The deckhands went about their duties securing the ship with hushed efficiency. They weren’t expected to make port in Arendelle for another two months, and they all wanted to hurry home to their wives and sweethearts. But one man couldn’t wait. He leapt down to the pier before the gangway was put in place. He landed in the shadows between lanterns and, like a shadow, was gone.

There were few lights still burning in Arendelle. The castle itself was dark, save for one soft glowing purple light in a high-up window.

The shadow quietly made his way through the maze of corridors and hallways until he stood outside the white door covered in intricate rosemaling. The door swung open on silent hinges to find the princess not in her extremely too large bed. She was curled up against the window, the crystal around her neck giving off the soft purple glow that had beckoned him from the harbor.

He gave her that crystal, and now it had called him home. Not to the castle, not to Arendelle, but to her.

“Anna…”

She whispered his name in her sleep. She was so peaceful, he didn’t want to disturb her. She must have sensed she wasn’t alone, for her eyes fluttered open, blinking to take in as much light as she could.

“Merry Christmas, Anna. I’m home.”

“Kristoff!” she wrapped her arms around his neck and burrowed her face into his chest. “I dreamt you came home.”

“I’ll always come home for you,” he whispered into her hair. He had four months of beard and likely stank of salt and fish, but Anna didn’t care. None of that mattered. All that mattered was he was safe and home.

He took her in his arms and there they stayed until the first light of Christmas morning shone through her windows.

 

_I'll take you in my arms and there you'll stay_

_If I get home on Christmas day_


End file.
